Feb 112016
 
Panasonic 100-400 release date review specs

Panasonic 100-400 release date
A new Super telephoto lens is coming from Panasonic. It is a long awaited lens, until now there was not really a good lens for bird/wildlife photography in the Micro 4/3 system. There were several 100-300 zooms from Panasonic and Olympus but this is not so exciting especially for birders.

Official name

It is funny it is called Leica DG Vario-Elmar 100-400 f/4.5-6.3 Asph, what is funny I call it Panasonic. The lens has one UED, two ED and 1 Aspherical lens element. The minimum focusing distance is 1.3m which translates to 0.25x magnification.

Focal length

If you think 400mm and mostly use Aps-C cameras, perhaps not so excited about 400mm. But if you compare it Aps-C, on a 4/3 camera it is more like a 500mm. I don’t say on a Full frame camera, it is lot less, not exciting at all, at least for me. If you compare Aps-C I guess most people use out there, on a Micro 4/3 camera, all lenses has an extra 25% reach. To be totally precise the depth of field is more because of the smaller sensor. So it is more like an 500mm f/5.6, which is much more exciting. And it is under 1kg / 2 lbs, and only 17cm, or approximately 6″.

The lens has a stabilizer and it is possible to use with cameras stabilizers as well which means we can have Dual stabilizer with a proper camera attached to this lens.

Panasonic 100-400 competition

The Micro 4/3 compatition is the also new Olympus 300mm f/4 prime, which is also more like a 375mm f/4. At first for me seems more interersting than a zoom, if we add a 1.4x teleconverter in it as well which will be a 420mm f/5.6. The zoom is more versatile, the prime usually has more brightness and optical quality. But we don’t know yet either lens optical quality. The advantage of the Panasonic that it is small, especially if compare to Canon and Nikon, but I don’t expect it to better for a 300mm f/2.8 or 500mm f/4 on either system (but if Canon continues winter sleeping regarding sensor technology, their super expensive primes will have a very nice resale value, at least until everybody switch to Nikon or mirrorless). If you shoot from a tripod, no matter. You can put a Sigma 150-600 or a Tamron 150-600mm and you shooting at a whopping 750mm (on Aps-C) on paper at least, but without autofocus.

Panasonic 100-400 price

The initial price of the new super telephoto lens is 1800 USD. I wouldn’t call it cheap.

Video promo

It is not an official promo, I think even better.

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